The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
427 
Commercial Fruit Culture 
Central Packing Houses for Grapes 
Tart II 
Poor Packing of Small Baskets.— 
It is estimated that in 1923 California 
shipped more than nine-tenths of the ton¬ 
nage, while all that portion east of the 
Mississippi shipped but one-tenth. It is 
probable’that three-fourths of the tonnage 
shipped from Western New York was 
loaded in 12-quart baskets which met in 
competition grapes from California. Not 
only has the use of this package greatly 
increased in Western New York, but sec¬ 
tions in which it was but little known a 
few years since are using it for tbe larger 
part of the crop. The two and four-quart 
table packages have become a rarity, and 
as a result the consumer who wished 
grapes for dessert purposes has been com¬ 
pelled to purchase by the pound either 
American grapes from the corner gro¬ 
cery or old world varieties from the fruit 
stand. Two principal reasons are respon¬ 
sible for elimination of the small pack¬ 
age, one already mentioned, the demand 
for wine purposes; the second, the de¬ 
car is the loser. In the latter case every 
grower who had good grapes in that car 
had his price fixed by a few poor baskets 
in the cat, and he is the direct loser. In 
either instance, confidence is lost both by 
the buyer and by the growers, who had to 
take a loss because of lack of a standard¬ 
ized grade. There is not a doubt but that 
the trade and the public had entirely lost 
confidence in the dessert package at the 
time when the demand for bulk grapes 
arrived. The 12-quart basket seemed to 
be an easy way out of the fast accumu¬ 
lating difficulties, hence it met with a 
ready welcome, with the result that tt 
was next to impossible to buy in the open 
market any sort of small package grapes. 
Community Packing. —For several 
years it has been customary for individ¬ 
uals or groups of individuals in certain 
vineyard sections of New Y r ork to buy 
grapes from the different growers, buy or 
lease a suitable building, hire several ex¬ 
pert packers and pack out their pur¬ 
chases. This method was a vast im¬ 
provement on the individual vineyard 
Shipping Department of a Central racking House 
terioration in packing and grading of 
dessert grapes. Since little care was 
necessary in picking and handling when 
the fruit was to be used for wine making, 
laxness found its way into the packing 
house. It had ever been difficult to load 
a uniformly packed car of table grapes 
when it was made up of the product of 
several growers who sorted their grapes 
according to their several conceptions of 
what should constitute a No. 1 grade. Ifc 
is absolutely impossible to obtain uni¬ 
formity under such a plan, for in most 
instances the standards of each grower 
are fixed by the fruit he has to do with. 
The standard quality of grapes is quite 
variable from season to season. Quality 
also varies in any season between vine¬ 
yards and growers. Two vineyardists 
with adjacent vineyards often harvest 
grapes widely different in quality. 
Drought, the mildew, rots, lack of til 
lage, long pruning, scanty fertilization 
and topography, each a.nd all contribute 
to poor quality. Even given grapes from 
the same vineyard, two growers with the 
best of intentions cannot as a rule pack 
two lots of grapes that would prove en¬ 
tirely uniform. In the loading of a car 
of two or four-quart baskets many grow¬ 
ers are represented. Thus the packs will 
be of several standards, some good and 
some poor. The distributor buys usually 
from some individual or association on 
which he relies, or he buys from a car 
door inspection. If the good pack bas¬ 
kets are on the top he buys the whole, 
or a part, with the belief that the others 
are just as good. If it happens that the 
poor are at the top of the car, the entire 
lot, good and poor, are bought on the 
basis of a poor pack. In the first in¬ 
stance the buyer is deceived, and he is 
directly the heavy loser. Of course in the 
end the individual or association shipping 
poor grapes and selling them at a price 
fixed by the good ones at the top of the 
pack, yet it did not entirely assure a 
first-class, uniform pack, since vineyard 
variations were not eliminated. Too ofteu 
the grapes from certain vineyards were 
bought because they' could be got more 
cheaply than some others. Some few 
buyers and packers operating under this 
plan bought only such vineyards as would 
pack out the best in quality and uniform¬ 
ity. 
Co-operative Work. —Some years ago 
one of the co-operative grape associations 
in Central New York undertook the pack¬ 
ing of grapes for those of its members 
who desired a restoration of the table 
market trade once enjoyed by the grow¬ 
ers of that section. An excellent pack 
was turned out, but the association was 
unfortunate in its selection of a sales 
agency, and as a result this excellent 
brand sold for no more than the grapes 
packed by Tom, Dick and Harry. The 
cash buyers seized upon this point, and 
through the dissemination of a lot of 
loose talk eventually brought about the 
disbanding of the enterprise. 
Private Packing Houses. —During 
the past season several packing houses 
operated by individual cash buyers were 
busy, thus indicating that the swing from 
bulk shipments to the dessert packages 
had begun. There can be no doubt that 
another season will see many more pack¬ 
ing houses under private control in opera¬ 
tion in Central New York. Huch houses, 
while encouraging the growing of better 
quality grapes, tend to relieve the bulk 
market of a large tonnage that would 
otherwise be sold in competition with 
wine grapes from California, and at the 
same time tend to- restore the confidence 
of the trade and the consumer. Yet it 
would seem that the growers are in a 
position to handle the crop best through 
the central packing house, and thus get 
better returns. F. E. GLADWIN. 
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